Ash
by Jessi-Gurl
Summary: Well Angel meets someone from his past, and they have a little history together.


***I do not own this, it belongs to the evil Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, so I beg and Plead of you not to sue, oh and r/r***  
  
It was a late night, all was ok with the world, no dire prophecies, no apocalypse, no lost souls to be saved, but…  
  
Ash looked at Angel Investigations, and swallowed, it wasn't getting easier with time. She walked in.  
  
After looking around a bit she spotted a brunette girl sitting at the desk, "Hello you have come to Angel Investigations, how may we help you?" the brunette asked in a false cheerleader voice.  
  
"I need to speak with Angel," she said shortly.  
  
She just sat there and yelled, "Angel there's someone asking for you."  
  
As Angel walked down the stairs talking to a tall nerdy looking guy, in glasses and, from where she was, had a British accent. Watcher, she thought uncomfortably. She turned her attention back to Angel. Wow, he's one of those precious few that look better with time, if her heart had still beat she was sure it would have skipped a few. But she still swallowed.  
  
From the way he was looking at her he apparently hadn't forgotten their last meeting.  
  
"Ashandre, I thought you'd be dust by now," he said coldly.  
  
"Back at ya," she returned just as coldly.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"Help," she admitted with out grudging.  
  
"What!" he nearly shouted.  
  
In all of the hundred years that he had known her she had never asked for help, even if it killed all of her minions.  
  
"Well, Angel looks shell shocked, and you look pleased," Cordelia said dryly.  
  
"Well I haven't asked for help in over two hundred years," she explained kindly.  
  
"Over two hundred years," she swallowed, but it was a lot to swallow, "Wesley I think I need a chair."  
  
Angel trying to get his step back in said, "Well I'm not in the regular habit of helping vampires."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah I already know about all of that.  
  
"You see, when you got your soul 'She' called an undead family reunion, me and my gang were invited, 'She' was pissed. Well, the gypsies were very worried something would happen like this, so there was this spell that, once placed, would activate on the last drop of blood being drunk, it was specialized for vampires. Anyways we were greedy asses and drank, and we got our souls back.  
  
"Twelve of us came like this, mostly my group, but there were a few of Elias's,  
  
and well after that all of us came together, except you and one other, I think it was Pike, but we have no way of knowing, until he comes to us."  
  
"Spike!! Might have a soul!!! Please that vampire dude has no soul, evil, evil and more evil!!!" Cordelia said.  
  
Ash grinned, Angle had forgotten how pretty she was.  
  
"Not Spike, Pike's older than Spike by about fifty years, give or take, and a heck of a lot less obsessed with Dru," she shuddered at the mention of the crazy vampire.  
  
"And a little nicer to minions and rookies," Angel added.  
  
"You would know, you were a rookie under him, weren't you? Me myself though I was older than him thirty years, give or take."  
  
Wesley watched this whole dialogue with interest.  
  
"You knew Angel," he stated.  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"He's a Watcher isn't he?" Ash asked looking at Angel.  
  
Angel jumped, "Ex-Watcher, how'd you know."  
  
"British accent, whole nerdy look, ect."  
  
Angel nodded, Ash said in an after thought manner, "Oh and I got my magic back with the return of my soul. Of course. "  
  
"Prove it."  
  
Cordelia looked confused, "What does magic have to do with the return of someone's soul?"  
  
"Magic is the gift of the gods to those with souls, you see because the soulless and un-dead have all of the side goodies, we don't get magic, oh yeah and because soulled beings tend to work for good, but I'm not saying that's necessary, or some sort of rule or anything. Hell I've seen way to many creatures with souls get pulled onto the dark side a little to often," she said that all in a couple of sentences, without taking a breath, Cordelia was astounded, so was Wesley. "She broke my record didn't she?" Cordy asked.  
  
"Angel, is this true?" Wesley asked.  
  
"Yeah, for both counts, and Ashandre you still haven't proven it."  
  
She stuck out her tongue. Then before anyone could see, a ball of rapidly shifting light appeared in her hand, " I have a soul," the ball turned a gentle blue for a second before shifting again.  
  
Suddenly the ball turned a harsh red, "Someone's lying," Angel said.  
  
"Angel vamp out," she commanded before doing the same.  
  
Angel did so and some of the harshness faded, "That was supposed to go back to swirly, wasn't it?" Cordelia asked.  
  
Angel nodded.  
  
Abruptly Gunn walked in with an apparent customer. Cordelia rubbed her hands together gleefully. Ash scowled when the woman with Gunn suddenly shrieked, "That's her, that's the one killed my baby,"  
  
Ash whispered a word, and the ball of light and color burst into a thousand pieces and covered all of them. The woman shrieked once the pieces covered her and turned into an ugly demon.  
  
Ash whispered another word and the demon burst into a ball of flame.  
  
"Now I think I've proven it," she stated quietly.  
  
Gunn was staring at the place where she had been.  
  
"What just happened?" he asked rather uncomfortably. He didn't like being in the same room as a witch that could turn you into a ball of flame with a word.  
  
"I think a Comos demon just almost attacked you," she answered drily.  
  
"Comos, I've never heard of a Comos demon.'  
  
"Yeah well, they're a rare specialty, they specialize in assassination attempts, and they tend to get their mark, more often than not."  
  
Gunn swallowed. I almost brought an assassin in on us.  
  
Three hours later:  
  
Ash lead Angel to a large mansion with some of the windows painted with black paint, but most of them had heavy blackout curtains.  
  
"Well, this is home," Ash looked at the building, "We saved it from a nest of vampires 'bout thirty years back."  
  
He glanced at her. She gave a reckless grin, "time to run the gauntlet."  
  
He laughed lightly, "let's go."  
  
She lifted her hand to open the door… and had it slowly open on its own. She grinned wider, "Tawny must have know I was coming." 


End file.
